A suburban music teacher has taken a world-renowned classical musician to court over an £80,000 violin he allegedly offered to buy with cash hidden inside a piano in Belgrade.
Ruzica West, 38, was given the Landolfi instrument as a present by her grandmother in 2002, but decided to sell it when she fell short of cash in 2015.
She took it to her former tutor Professor Mateja Marinkovic, a Royal Academy of Music associate who had taught her at the Purcell School for Young Musicians in Hertfordshire.
It is alleged Professor Marinkovic offered to buy the 18th century violin, valued at £80,000, and its expensive bow for a total of £60,000.
But a court heard how Miss West, from Ilford, later pulled out of the deal when she was told she would need to travel to Serbia to collect the cash, which Professor Marinkovic said was hidden inside a piano.
Miss West is now suing the musician at Central London County Court over a subsequent deal in 2016, claiming Professor Marinkovic left her £12,500 out of pocket.
Ruzica West (left with her mother Olgica West) was given the Landolfi instrument as a present by her grandmother in 2002, but decided to sell it when she fell short of cash in 2015
The Landolfi violin was made by Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi, an Italian craftsman considered to be one of history’s finest stringed instrument makers, alongside Stradivarius.
Miss West, now a singer, violinist and teacher, decided to sell the instrument in 2015 when in need of cash to pay for medical treatment to her jaw.
The family went to Professor Marinkovic, hoping they would be able to get a better price for the violin than they would receive at an auction.
A price was agreed for £40,000, plus £20,000 for a bow, but Miss West decided against it when she was told she would have to go to Belgrade to retrieve the money, she claims.
‘We agreed on a price, but the means of payment were not what I would expect from a professor,’ she told the judge.
Pictured: Professor Mateja Marinkovic, a Royal Academy of Music associate
‘The way he was going to pay us and where the money came from was not acceptable… it didn’t seem correct to me.’
Miss West, still ‘desperate’ for cash, approached Professor Marinkovic the following year to discuss the sale.
She claims she agreed to a deal worth £40,000, including £26,000 in cash and the proceeds of the sale of another 19th century French violin.
However, Miss West told the court that soon after she accepted the deal she learned from an expert that the market value of this instrument was between £1,500 and £2,000.
‘I didn’t think Mateja Marinkovic would do anything to harm us and eventually we realised that that was the case,’ her mother Olgica West claimed before Judge Ian Avent.
She claims the musician short-changed her and Miss West, adding: ‘You never had the intention to pay that £14,000 to us.’
Professor Marinkovic denies he owes Miss West for the exchange, and insists he never suggested a monetary value for the French violin.
He added only as a musician he valued its sound as being worth ‘over £12,000.’
Professor Marinkovic, who has since played the Landolfi at concerts in Serbia and China, claims he never wanted the violin which has allegedly caused him to be ‘harassed’ and ‘pursued’ by the Belgrade mafia.
The sale was for £26,000 and did not involve any cash value being attached to the French violin, which was simply a gift to allow Miss West to carry on playing, he told the judge.
‘I didn’t want to buy the violin,’ he said. ‘They came crying to me.’
Representing Miss West, Peter Daniels said a crucial message to the Wests, in which Professor Marinkovic suggested the violin was worth over £12,000, was ‘clear.’
It is alleged Professor Marinkovic (pictured in concert in 2009) offered to buy the 18th century violin, valued at £80,000, and its expensive bow for a total of £60,000
‘The insertion into the middle of it of a figure for the violin… was bound to leave the Wests with only one impression, that the violin was going to be worth over £12,000 – probably £14,000,’ he said.
‘The violin was part of the deal. The figure had been agreed. It was £40,000, as had been agreed a year previously.
‘I say the violin was never accepted by Miss West. It was given back and cash was requested.’
Giving evidence, Professor Marinkovic denied overvaluing the French violin and insisted he still believes it is worth much more than £2,000.
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Pictured: A violin similar to the Landolfi instrument sold by Miss West
‘I’m not an expert in violins, I’m an expert in playing them,’ he told the judge via a video link from Belgrade.
‘It is how much I value the sound of the violin. I said my opinion was that the sound of that violin is far superior to £12,000.
‘Any of my students would have been happy to buy that violin for £12,000, and get that sort of sound for that sort of money.’
Judge Avent said: ‘They didn’t want a nice violin that was well-tuned and played nice songs, they wanted the hard cash.’
Professor Marinkovic said he had not agreed a deal worth £40,000 – it had always been £26,000 cash, with a gift of the French violin, to which no value was ascribed.
‘The French violin wasn’t presented in any way as a monetary thing,’ he continued. ‘I didn’t want to buy the Landolfi.
‘They came crying to me. I said I didn’t have the money, but there was pressure, pressure. I was doing it to help them. They asked for £40,000. I didn’t have the money.
‘After huge pressure, I made an offer of what I could give. I offered the maximum I could give.
‘The deal was £26,000, plus the French violin. The French violin was part of the deal, but it didn’t have any material value in the deal.’
Professor Marinkovic told the judge he still has the Landolfi and that his wife also plays it.
The judge reserved his decision on the case until a later date.
